The modern communications era has brought about a tremendous expansion of wireline and wireless networks. Computer networks, television networks, and telephony networks are experiencing an unprecedented technological expansion, fueled by consumer demand. Wireless and mobile networking technologies have addressed related consumer demands, while providing more flexibility and immediacy of information transfer.
Current and future networking technologies continue to facilitate ease of information transfer and convenience to users. Due to the now ubiquitous nature of electronic communication devices, people of all ages and education levels are utilizing electronic devices to communicate with other individuals or contacts, receive services and/or share information, media and other content. One area in which there is a demand to increase ease of information transfer relates to transmissions of data from a wide area (WA) network such as, for example, a telecommunications network to a local area (LA) network.
In this regard, for example, in order to provide easier or faster information transfer and convenience, telecommunication industry service providers are developing improvements to existing networks. In this manner, for example, improvements are being made to the universal mobile telecommunications system (UMTS) terrestrial radio access network (UTRAN). Further, for example, the evolved-UTRAN (E-UTRAN) is currently being developed. The E-UTRAN, which is also known as Long Term Evolution (LTE), is aimed at upgrading prior technologies by improving efficiency, lowering costs, improving services, making use of new spectrum opportunities, and providing better integration with other open standards.
Additionally, telecommunications devices are being developed that connect to radio networks as well as other networks such as local area networks. In this way, a device may be able to offload certain communications from the radio networks to the local area networks, which may serve to alleviate the burden placed on the radio networks. Systems supporting such functionality typically rely on pre-existing local area networks that provide an access point to the Internet. Furthermore, devices operating in these systems generally conduct communications independently without regard to the other devices connected to the same local area network.
At present, devices of local area networks may send and receive data inside the local area network during service periods. Currently, devices of a local area network may need to remain active to listen for a service period being opened for communications with a wide area network. The devices of the local area network may consume excessive power listening for a service period.
Accordingly, it may be desirable to provide a mechanism to more precisely and efficiently trigger service periods and to optimize transmissions of networks to conserve power among devices.